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It is following the classic gnome approach, not so much because it is rather sparse, but more the idea behind it.

"Flexibility is bad" one approach because programmers would butcher it (they might, but is not a given) and users are confused by buttons or options ( they might be, but not everyone is an idiot) allowing them to set the level of "intrusion".

The total lack of granularity feels a bit weird, but I'll reserve final judgement when an actual working implementation shows up

Edited 2008-12-24 14:51 UTC

History disagrees. I don't know if you followed the Mozilla Suite through all the years that they spun their wheels, user share remaining stagnant and tiny, until they discovered that the "less is more" philosophy had huge advantages. The "stripped completely down" Firefox *saved* Mozilla. And did it almost literally overnight. KDE folks seem to prefer the "keep adding more and more features" approach, presumably thinking that will make it more popular. But the balance of the actual real world evidence supports the "less if more" philosophy, despite the fact that it may seem counter-intuitive to some.

there is the concept of "too little", just as there is "too much"

History disagrees. I don't know if you followed the Mozilla Suite through all the years that they spun their wheels, user share remaining stagnant and tiny, until they discovered that the "less is more" philosophy had huge advantages. The "stripped completely down" Firefox *saved* Mozilla. And did it almost literally overnight. KDE folks seem to prefer the "keep adding more and more features" approach, presumably thinking that will make it more popular. But the balance of the actual real world evidence supports the "less if more" philosophy, despite the fact that it may seem counter-intuitive to some. "

I'd have to disagree here. Firefox is at the bottom of the list for applications driven by a "less is more" philosophy.

Firefox is an extensible cross-platform framework built upon the gecko engine. The extension framework and XUL-based interface provide near infinite options and features for users that would like them. Look at any thread that mentions Firefox or an alternative browser, and it will become peppered with praise about extensions.

I'd argue that Firefox is closer to the KDE design philosophy than Gnome. Don't decide what your users do or don't need and what they should do with the product, but build the hooks and the frameworks to allow them or others to extend and configure the product however they see fit. Provide enough abstraction that they don't even need to focus on the underlying platforms any more. That sort of thing.

Personally, I stopped using Firefox a while ago. I wasn't "relying" on extensions and such, I just want a simple browser, and simply found better solutions without the associated bloat and resource requirements. But if I did find value in the extensions, as many certainly do, I'd view the application in an entirely different perspective.

Mozilla was dying because it evolved into a sucky application that simply didn't offer enough benefit over the incumbent. Tearing it a apart and refactoring it into something more manageable and modern was pretty much the last choice they had. And they certainly did well with that. But Mozilla still ultimately aims to make the browser an application platform that diminishes the relevance of the underlying OS, just as Netscape originally intended. Sort of a "more is necessary" approach, than just being a simple browser.

I take your point (though I don't agree ), but I just think you used the wrong example to illustrate it...